You really need somebody to be responsible for the defensive side of the line. You could switch this responsibility to the wings, but only at the expense of them covering downfield -- which makes the BJ's job infinitely more difficult. To counteract this, you really need 6 or 7 man mechanics with deep wings.

I don't think that 5 man mechanics will benefit from moving the U to the offensive backfield solely on mechanics. I can see it happening anyway, because Fed just likes to copy its big brothers -- as I'm packing my 2" stripe shirt for this evening.

OH is experimenting with 6 man mechanics, but not in the traditional sense but rather adding a center judge along with the referee and the umpire in the traditional defensive spot.

I know of at least one other state doing the same thing. Personally, I believe it's worth exploring.

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"Gentlemen, we are going to relentlessly chase perfection, knowing full well we will not catch it, because nothing is perfect. But we are going to relentlessly chase it, because in the process we will catch excellence. I am not remotely interested in just being good." - Vince Lombardi

I think we'd all be in favor of moving to 6 or 7 officials for HS games. For us, that would mean another 12 or 24 people on the field every week. That would really stretch our association. I understand some areas are already moving varsity games to Thursday due to a shortage of officials.

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"Never argue with stupid people. They will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience." - Mark Twain

Last year I was asked to move back to U for one game. We tried moving the U into the backfield on a 5 man crew.

In my opinion this is a bad mechanic in a 5 man crew. You lose all contact with players, no coverage on the LOS for pass plays, yes wings may hold but when they read pass they slide downfield, the game is not so fast that a high school U can't keep himself out of harms way, for most of his career. My biggest problem was not having that interaction with the Mike LB and Center, I used to know them by their first name and talk to them most every play. If I was having a problem with someone they took care of it.

Not in 5 man, 7 man when wings hold maybe but I would still miss that contact.

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Big Ump aka Shawn

"EVERY JOB IS A SELF-PORTRAIT OF THE PERSON WHO DID IT. AUTOGRAPH YOUR WORK WITH EXCELLENCE."~unknown

I think the last two posts are spot-on. The game-control value of a good umpire in his normal position behind the defense is immense; I wouldn't trade it away no matter how much better the view is. (And I don't think safety of the official is at risk; at least, no more so than the wings, who have accounted for the majority of officials' injuries that I personally know of.)

And our association fought hard to get an expansion from four officials to five for varsity contests in our area. Having won that, we're now taxed to the limit to provide enough officials to fill those slots - some second-year guys are getting varsity assignments. There's no way we could handle more right now.